So yeah, as the title suggests, I’ve decided to put project Hero Runners on hold. And there’s a very good reason in doing so.
Back to GameMaker
I’ve decided to give GameMaker another shot since I’m really convinced that for 2D mobile games, Unity is a bit of an overkill. In fact, I wouldn’t even be acquiring GameMaker 2.0 since it’s really expensive and 1.4 seems to be working just fine.
On the other hand, I have the Mobile license for 1.4, i.e. I have it’s “pro” version which gives some benefits (such as having no splash screens).
After taking a course and a half on udemy, I really do feel good about this choice. I had hundreds of ideas coursing through my mind, but I was determined to stick to my original plan and that was to finish the so-called “Hero Runners” project first.
Alas, it wasn’t as easy as I thought.
Pixel Art Issues
I always mention this but I’ll say it again, I suck at anything art-related.
I liked how Pixel Art looked if made correctly. And I was able to draw a few characters for Hero Runners which I really liked. However, when it came to animating them, I found out just how bad I was at visualizing and putting them into ink (or in this case, pixels).
That wouldn’t normally stop me, but having to juggle between GameMaker lessons and drawing lessons was starting to take its toll – I couldn’t focus on neither.
So I set my mind on one thing. I said I WILL complete one course first (a GameMaker Mobile Development course) and then worry about the artwork and even blogging later.
Having completed that course, it dawned on me that GameMaker makes it really easy to switch sprites, or make on-the-fly adjustments anyway. So I should finish making a game that is less graphically demanding first, and once GameMaker becomes second nature, dive deep down into drawing.
To this end, I decided to start a new project, one I had been just as excited about, and one that is definitely easier in every way.
SpaceWar – A High School Hobby
The game will be a reboot and reimagining of one of the most memorable games I created back in High School, aptly named SpaceWar.
Created using Turbo C and using basic draw-to-screen graphics, SpaceWar was a 1-on-1 space battle game, where each player would select a ship, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, and gameplay, and go on to battle each other, in a local multiplayer, share-a-keyboard extravaganza. Think of it like the space equivalent of Street Fighter.
I will delve more into the SpaceWar universe and its ships in a separate post.
Since it is, after all, an old game, Pixel Art is very much appreciated. And true to the spirit of the game, the new mobile version will feature a local 1-on-1, share-the-screen version, with an updated, faster-paced gameplay I would like to nickname Blitz.
Thus, the new game will be called SpaceWar Blitz.
The game aims to be very exciting, with each match only lasting a few minutes. Unlike the original game, Single Player and possibly Campaign will be available as well. Finally, the base game with 3 base ships will be Free and ad-supported, while a $1 paid version will add 6 more ships (all 9 should be balanced, in fact, the most iconic and strongest ships in terms of stats is one of the Free ships) and remove the ads.
I cannot express just how excited I am with this project, so much so that I’m feeling pretty confident I can make it enter Alpha testing within the next month, maybe Beta by June! Watch out for this in Google Play or this blog!
Also, watch out for the SpaceWar universe post coming here very soon.
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